For most people, the holiday shopping season seems lightyears away. The weather is drastically different than it will be at the end of the year, and everyone is thinking about free time, lazy days and travelling. But as purveyors of goods and wise marketers, we know that this is the time to begin mapping out your holiday plan, if you haven't already started.

Meet with your Team — either in person, in a chat room or Virtual Lab, or through a Team forum. Discuss what your Team's holiday selling goals are, and your plan to achieve them. There are many things to consider and to start working on. Here's a checklist of ideas to think over:

• Do you have a list-serv with email addresses within your demographic? Whenever a Team member has a table at an in-person show in the next few months, have a sign-up sheet for the Team Mailing listso you can collect email addresses from interested buyers. It's never too early to start collecting information!
• Is your Team interested in cross-promoting one another's shops?  With live links between Etsy shops now active, you can link to related or complementary items in the shops of your Teammates!
• Would your Team be interested in cross-promoting or collaborating with another Team so everyone reaches a wider audience? With over 300 Etsy Teams, surely there's another Team that would be a perfect pairing for yours. Leaders can contact one another, brainstorm and begin working out details.
• Is your Team's blog living up to its potential? Include Etsy Minis from Team members, a field for readers to give their email addresses to join your list, and update, update, update!
• What types of promotional items might be useful, memorable and interesting for your Team to distribute around your local areas?
• What other ways can you reach shoppers to get them into your Etsy shops?

Team Tips are a weekly series of tips and ideas from the Etsy Teams. You can find more Resources at team.etsy.com. Etsy Teams are growing really quickly, and we love that so many sellers want to join in to promote their shops, Teams and Etsy. For more information on Etsy Teams, check out the Teams pages and this page of Frequently Asked Questions. Keep up the great work, Etsy Teams!